Badminton tourney at Khar Gymkhana from August 1

Neary 400 entries in half a dozen events have been received for the Khar Gymkhana-MBA Senior Inter-District and Senior Open State Badminton Championship for men and women to be held here from August 1 to 6.
Amravati, Aurangabad, Beed, Chandrapur, Dhule, Jalgaon, Latur, Nagpur, Nashik, Palghar, Raigad, Sangli, Solapur, Thane, GMBA, top seeds MSDBA and second seeds Pune will feature in the Inter-District mixed team, a media release said here today.
The tournament will be played at suburban Khar Gymkhana.
Kaushal Dharmamer of Mumbai is the men's top seed, while Abhishek Kulkarni of Thane is seeded second. Neha Pandit of Pune is the women's top seed, while Vaishnavi Bhale of Nagpur is the second seed.

Bhale is the top seed in the women's doubles with Riya Pillai and is the mixed doubles top seed with Nihar Kelkar of Thane.
The other notable players in the fray are Hrissha Dubey of CCI, who has earned a first round bye and will kick off her campaign against Neha Pandit in the women's singles second round. CCI-GMBA winner Nigel D'Sa of Customs and Viplav Kuvale of ESIC also have earned first round byes in the men's draw.

The tournament, being held under the aegis of the Maharashtra Badminton Association, has attracted neary 400 entries in six events - mixed team, men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles and mixed doubles, the release said.

Seedings: Mixed Team: 1. MSDBA, 2. Pune. Men's singles: 1. Kaushal Dharmamer, 2. Abhishek Kulkarni. Doubles: 1. Sameer Bhagwat/Sudhanshu Medsikar, 2. Aniruddha Mayekar/Gaurav Mithe.
Women's singles: 1. Neha Pandit, 2. Vaishnavi Bhale. Doubles: 1. Riya Pillai/Vaishnavi Bhale, 2. Manasi Gadgil/Mrunmayi Saoji. Mixed Doubles: 1. Nihar Kelkar/ Vaishnavi Bhale, 2. Sameer Bhagwat/Manasi Gadgil.